"A friend of sorts, you could say."

"Are you, like, one of his lovers?"

At first, the man's eyes went wide. Then he slapped his thigh with wild laughter he couldn't hold in. "You think Trond is gay?"

"Don't you?"

The man . . . Zeb, he had called himself . . . just shook his head. "Trond is no more gay than I'm . . ." He seemed to hesitate for the right word. " . . . alive."

"What?" she gasped, especially when the man tossed the core of his apple to the ground and began to transform into the kind of beasts she'd seen outside in the corridor earlier. He grabbed her arm, then wrapped a scale-covered arm around her from behind, placing a knife blade at her throat, just as Trond burst into the room, pistol raised and pointed directly at Zeb. It was a strange-looking pistol, like a Sauer, but somehow different.

"Zeb, put the knife down," Trond said icily.

"You drop your weapon first."

"You don't want to do this, Zeb. I know you don't."

"You're right, but I have no choice. You know what Jasper wants."

"You have a choice. There's always a choice." Pounding footsteps could be heard coming down the corridor. Looking directly at Nicole, Trond said, "Slick has already left. It's just you and me here now. If we don't hurry, the Chinooks will leave without us." She noticed the oddest, scariest thing then. Fangs were elongating inside Trond's mouth.

Turning his attention to the man holding her, Trond said, "You can take me back to Jasper. Let Nicole go."

"No!" Nicole protested, sensing that if Trond left her now, she'd never see him again. He was sacrificing himself for her. Why that should matter so much was a puzzle.

"Too late!" the beast said as a key began turning in the corridor door. With his arm still wrapped around Nicole, the beast dropped the knife and grabbed hold of Trond's arm. With a whooshy noise and blinding mist, Nicole felt as if they were flying through the air. In what felt like hours, but must have been only seconds, she found herself in an empty cave with Trond and Zeb.

"What to do, what to do!" Zeb said.

"Was that Najid's men at the door back there, or Lucies?" Trond asked.

Nicole had no idea what Trond meant, but Zeb apparently did. "Both," Zeb replied.

Trond glared at Zeb, but then he cocked his head to the side, "You saved us, didn't you? You didn't bring us here to take us to Jasper."

"I'm still pondering my options." More confusing words, from Zeb this time.

On those strange words, Nicole felt the three of them swoosh up into the air, through the ceiling and roof. Swoosh was the only word she could think of to describe this in-one-place-one-instant-and-in-another-an-instant-later. For just a blip of a nanosecond they seemed to hover above the courtyard, where dozens of the tailed and fanged beasts swarmed over the helicopter and chased after fleeing humans. At the same time, she saw fanged human-looking creatures with wispy blue wings attacking the beasts. Chaos reigned everywhere.

But then she seemed to go unconscious because next thing she knew the three of them were standing on the deck of a cliff-side, bamboo-and-banana-leaf-roofed bungalow with a spectacular view of the turquoise blue waters.

Dazed, she looked around to see two fanged men-Trond and Zeb-high-fiving each other. She, on the other hand, felt like high-diving into the water to swim away from what had to be a mirage, or something worse. At the least, she would get great pleasure out of shoving the two dick-for-brains men-or whatever they were-over the cliff.

Instead, her stomach heaved, and she fought to find level ground so that the bile pushing its way into the back of her throat could be forestalled. Losing the battle, she bent over the railing and began to puke her guts out.

She hoped when she was done, this nightmare would be over.

Some hidey-holes are nicer than others . . .

Trond wasn't sure what to do first. Belt Zeb a good one for scaring the crap out of Nicole, or offer to help Nicole, who was still leaning over the railing, retching. He chose the latter.

"Here," he said, pressing a handkerchief into her hand, his other hand holding her hair back off her face. "Can I do anything for you? A cool washcloth? An aspirin? Is there anything you want?" he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.

She didn't raise her head, just tilted it to the side to give him a direct look of loathing before saying, "Yeah. Go fuck yourself, you lying, slime-sucking scumbag."

"Okaaay," he said, turning toward Zeb, who grinned at him.

"My wife told me the same thing in pretty much the same words in Old Hebrew when she was pregnant with our second child. Not the lying, slime-sucking scumbag words. The other ones."

"You had a wife. And children?" Why was he asking such irrelevant questions at a time like this? And why was Zeb sharing such irrelevant information at a time like this?

Zeb paused, seemingly surprised that he'd revealed so much. A cloud passed over his no-longer-grinning face. "Yes, I had a family. A long time ago." As if wiping an eraser across his expression, he rubbed both hands over his eyes and smiled, offering, "Wanna beer?"

"Thank you, God!" Trond replied, glad-handing the demon. A cold beer was just what he needed about now.

"Not God. It was me who hauled all those cases of brew up the mountainside. Will Blue Moon be okay, or would you prefer a pilsner?"

"Blue Moon would be perfect." He followed Zeb through the open glass doors into a large living room, complete with comfortable, buttery yellow leather sofas and recliners, a flat widescreen TV on one wall, and colorful, probably museum-quality oil paintings on the other walls . . . one of them a big-ass depiction of the open petals of a flower. It resembled the labia of a woman's vagina, if you asked Trond, which no one did.

Zeb walked into the kitchen that was separated from this main room by a wide, curved archway. It appeared to be all red granite and stainless-steel, top-of-the-line appliances. Corridors led in several directions, leading to bedrooms and bathrooms, he supposed. The place wasn't huge, but it was casually luxurious.

When Zeb returned, he handed Trond his bottle of beer and sank into the matching recliner beside Trond's. In the midst of these high-quality furnishings, Zeb had the foresight to provide the ultimate male comforts. They both drank deeply, then belched with appreciation. That was all right, Trond figured, since it was just the two men. He'd made a concerted effort centuries ago to curb his cruder, slothful habits, like belching and farting.

Trond placed his half-empty bottle in the special cup holder on the arm of the recliner, then stacked his hands under his head and leaned back, inclining the chair, with a sigh of comfort. "What is this place, Zeb?"

"My hidey-hole."

"Jasper doesn't know about it?"

"Not yet."

"I thought Jasper knew everything, or could find out everything."

"I suppose he can, but he never had reason to question my comings and goings. Not yet."

"You're going to be in deep shit over this, aren't you?"

Zeb shrugged. "Depends on what I do with you two."

Trond arched a brow.

"If I deliver the two of you to Horror, I'll be a hero. If I don't . . ." He shrugged again.

"Yes, I imagine it would be horror to be a captive of the lead Lucipire."

"It would be that, but I meant his home. Horror is the name of Jasper's castle. In your homeland, by the way. The Norselands. The far, far northern Norselands. Land of ice and . . . horror."

Trond shivered, despite his best intentions to appear unintimidated by Zeb's words. "Where are we, by the way?"

"Caribbean island, too small to have a name."

"Isn't your headquarters in Greece? In the honeycombed chambers of some volcanic ruins, as I recall."

"It is. Gloom is the name of my home there, deep in the ashy chambers under the old volcano. But this is where I go when I want to be alone . . . or not so gloomy."

"Why are you telling me this? Revealing Lucie secrets has to be a no-no, punishable by at least a flogging."

"Lots more than that," Zeb said ominously. "I figure either way it won't matter what I tell you now. If I deliver you, you'll know anyway. If I don't deliver you, telling tales out of school, so to speak, will be the least of my offenses."

"I won't go willingly," Trond told him.

"I never thought you would, but you'll go. I'm older than you, and stronger. Plus, I have a trump card." He glanced out onto the deck where Nicole was straightening and wiping her mouth on the sleeve of her gown.

"What do you want, Zeb? What will be the deciding factor?"

"I want you to kill me," he said.

Now, that stunned Trond. "You're already dead, lackwit."

"I don't mean kill kill in the usual sense. I mean, kill me with your special weapons so that when I dissolve I won't go back to being a Lucipire anymore. I am tired, so tired, of the endless killing and needless torture. Plucking out eyeballs loses its entertainment value after the first hundred times." Zeb's jesting tone was belied by his sad eyes.

"Yeah, but you'd still be a demon, wouldn't you. Just in a different place. You'd have to go to . . . oh! You would prefer to go to Hell? Do you have any idea how Lucifer would punish you? It would be beyond horrific."

"I know. Better that than this endless evil I'm engaged in now."

Trond knew how Zeb felt about the endlessness of their existence, but at least Trond's killings were for a greater good. "Ironically, because you've asked for this, I can't do it."

"Why the hell not?"

"If we'd been engaged in battle, I would have killed you . . . demolished your Lucipire essence . . . in a heartbeat. But because you ask me to kill you, it would be murder. Suicide by vangel just isn't-forgive my jest-kosher."

"That doesn't make any sense at all."

"Does any of this make any sense?"

They sipped at their beers before Zeb spoke again. "I've always wondered, why did you . . . and your brothers . . . get a second-chance penance while so many of us sinners got condemned to this other sentence?"

"I don't know. Truly, I don't."

"Maybe my sins were so much greater."

Trond shook his head. "I don't think so. Ours were as bad as sin can get. Somehow, I think it was related to our being Vikings." He noticed Zeb's incredulous expression and said, "Go figure."

"I could be a Viking," Zeb decided, half joking.

At least Trond hoped he was joking because if this was a backward way of saying he'd like to join their ranks, Trond would have to disillusion him quickly. Through all the years only Vikings or those of Norse descent had been made vangels, and never had a demon been turned angel.

Sensing Trond's skepticism, Zeb sighed. "On second thought, I would make a piss-poor Viking. I'm not vain enough."

Trond would have reached over and punched him on the arm, but they were too far apart. Besides, Nicole was walking into the room, and she was not a happy camper, rather happy harem houri, considering she still wore the Arab gown that clung to her form but was raggedy along the edges, with one sleeve almost torn off. Her blonde hair was raggedy, too, and she had a bruise mark on her face from the melee that had occurred after the explosion. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her nose and mouth were red from her excessive vomiting.

Trond thought this brave woman was nigh glorious.

She paused in front of the two of them, glanced meaningfully at their recliners and the beers in their hands, and concluded, "Dumb as dirt, both of you!" Then she stomped off to open a door off the kitchen. It was a broom closet, which gave Trond ideas. Sensual ideas. When he saw Nicole blush, he knew she shared the same sensual memories.

Slamming the door shut, she tried another door, but it led to a walk-in, climate-controlled wine closet.

"You have a wine collection?" Trond was both surprised and impressed. "Holy clouds! There must be a thousand dollars' worth of wine in there."

"More like twenty thousand."

Trond had to laugh. "A demon wine connoisseur?"

At Trond's amusement, Zeb shrugged. "I have so few opportunities for enjoyment these days."

Trond understood that.

As Nicole slammed yet another door, Trond got up and inquired as sweetly as he could, "What are you looking for, Nicole?"

"A bathroom with a shower. And some clean clothes."

Zeb got up, too, and pointed to the left. "Second door on the right is the bathroom. There's a Jacuzzi tub if you want to relax your muscles."

Nicole said something foul about relaxing that caused Zeb to grin.

"And there's clothing of mine you can pick through in my bedroom across the hallway. Don't think anything will fit you, but you could try the jogging pants or the spandex bike shorts."

"You bike?" Trond asked. He was the one grinning now. Somehow, the idea of a demon riding a bike just didn't fit. A demon bike-riding wine connoisseur. Who would have guessed?

"I tried biking, but my tail kept getting in the way. Hey, I have to do something to keep in shape. We can't all be Navy SEALs."

Nicole was gaping at the two of them, as if they were lunatics. "What are you two?"

"I'm a vampire angel," Trond answered with a sigh of resignation. "A vangel."

"I'm a demon vampire," Zeb answered, not at all resigned. Just sad. "A Lucipire."

"You guys are weirding me out." Nicole shivered.

"Hey, I weird myself out sometimes," Trond said.

"Me too," Zeb said.

Nicole studied each of them. "I thought angels and demons were enemies."

"We are," Trond and Zeb replied at the same time.

She glanced at the beer bottles in their hands, the way they stood so close together, the his-and-his recliners, and shook her head with disbelief. "Beer-drinking buddies, more like. So, what happened to the fake fangs?"